Mariners Nearing Deal With Chris Iannetta

6:44pm: The Mariners are nearing a deal with free agent catcher Chris Iannetta, reports Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune (via Twitter). Seattle has been linked to catching help, including Iannetta, throughout the week. Iannetta has a history with new Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto, who acquired him in a trade with the Rockies while serving as GM of the Angels.

Iannetta, who turns 33 next April, struggled in 2015 and posted just a .188/.293/.335 batting line. However, a good deal of those struggles stemmed from an abnormally low .225 BABIP, and the veteran backstop maintained his characteristic strong eye at the plate, logging a 12.9 percent walk rate. Iannetta rebounded, to an extent, after a dismal month of April, posting a .315 OBP and .390 slugging percentage for the remainder of the season, though his average was still a meager .211 in that time. Historically, he’s been a much better hitter, as he entered the 2015 season as a career .236/.357/.414 hitter.

If a deal with Iannetta is reached, he’ll provide the Mariners with a veteran complement to Mike Zunino, who has struggled considerably at the Major League level despite his status as a former No. 3 draft pick and a much stronger Triple-A track record. Iannetta may not quite have Zunino’s defensive chops, but he caught 25 percent of base-stealers and rated as one of the game’s top pitch framers in 2015.

Comments

Yep, not really liking Dipito, or his moves so far, next Zunino will be dealt away…won’t recognize any 2016 players before you know it , my opinion only, just saying it’s a lot of wishing going on, on Dipoto’s part so far….

Won’t be surprised if your opinion of Dipoto doesn’t change. Die hard Angels fan here telling you to brace yourself. Dipoto took Mike Scioscia’s philosophy away from him and aimed to push him out and replace him with… Scott Servais. His roster building strategy was to be a Billy Beane clone and replace Scioscia’s action players with guys like Iannetta and Matt Joyce. And now even after Iannetta’s horrible season, this comes up. Tells me he would’ve likely re-signed Iannetta in Anaheim, or at least would’ve arm wrestled Scioscia over it.

Well, nothing matters in the end, except results. But I agree with DiPoto’s stated philosophy since he was hired. Pitching, defense, and consistent hitting win baseball games. The Mariners have plenty of power on the roster, but they can’t get guys on base. Their rotation is good when healthy, but the bullpen is too inconsistent. If he can address these deficits, I’ll be onboard. His moves so far make sense. Iannetta makes sense for the Mariners as a stop gap move. Mike Zunino will get there, but he was set back by being rushed up by a desperate GM in a futile effort to save his job.

I’m not a fan of Arte Moreno, and I can’t stand Mike Scoscia, so you are not convincing me with that argument. What I’ve seen the Angels do is throw money away on big name players who don’t fit the team in an attempt to win fan market share from the Dodgers, and it hasn’t really worked out on the field. Mike Trout is the best player in baseball hands down, so that was a bit of talent assessment genius, but neither the Pujols nor the Hamilton signings made any sense to me, given the championship caliber team the Angels had at the time. My impression was that was owner meddling with the GM’s plans. Am I wrong?

Unfortunately, on some levels you are. Arte Moreno gave Jerry Dipoto the green light to bring in his own people and do whatever he felt was needed. Well that included taking Mike Scioscia’s philosophy away, which is basically the same style of baseball the Royals play, and implemented his own regime of OBP, power, and no bunting. Station to station. He also took player development out of Scioscia’s hands. That’s where the struggle began. All it was was a clash between differing philosophies, and Dipoto did not have the leadership skills to resolve the situation and find a middle ground. This has all been well publicized in the last few months. You just have to research it. If you have the time. Or even care to. You’re not wrong about the ‘wasting money’ part. But that’s part of being a high market ball club, especially in The LA area. And is still no reason a high market team can’t field a winning team. Proven by them having the best record in the Majors just a season ago. The Angels’ biggest problem over the last 6 years has been their bullpen. And it even took Jerry Dipoto 2 1/2 seasons as GM to figure that out. Best example is how he drained his trade deadline budget on Zack Greinke in 2012 instead of getting what the Angels really needed: relievers. Plus he quit on his team in July. I’m just saying that Dipoto created just as much of a mess as Arte Moreno did, but more internally. But that’s still no reason why Billy Eppler can’t fill the Angels offseason needs and field a winning team again. I’m just pointing out what M’s fans are getting in Jerry Dipoto.

no. you’re probably right on the money with that scenario, Seattle’s ownership also has a history of interfering with the GM’s of the past…but who knows, a crap shoot as I see it, could benefit us, but turn overs since Lou Pinellas skippering days have been too frequent

Well the Angels did win a lot under Dipoto. Moreno’s ill-fated deals for Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols were a large part of what kept Dipoto from building a team that could succeed in the playoffs though. Also from the outside looking in, it appeared Scoscia acted more like a workplace bully than a reasonable partner. I would predict that Eppler and Scoscia aren’t going to have a much better relationship.

I’m sure, seems the direction their headed, Beane did come out well at the tail end of 2014, all the rentals they traded for are about gone, and 2015 showed that discount guts were not much of an impact, so we’ll see what this new regime in Seattle turns into. Hoping for the best, but not a warm fuzzy feeling here….

I disagree. I like Dipoto’s moves a lot. The Mariners only had 3 guys capable of holding down a starting MLB position in 2015. Marte may prove to be number 4, but the rest of them are journeymen or playing out of position. You can’t have a Frankenstein team like that and win. The guys he sent to TB were dead wood on the roster. They were all basically bench players or flawed starters. He cleared them out for pitching depth and a future CF. Karns was a score. Bring back Kuma, and the rotation is now solid. The Iannetta move makes perfect sense. Zunino is the catcher of the future, but right now he can’t hit at the ML level. You have to have a veteran ready for opening day who isn’t a black hole in the lineup. Zunino should start season in AAA. Iannetta is perfect. He has a career OBP of .351, which would have been second only to Cruz last year for guys other than call-ups. Lots more to do, but I see nothing to criticize in DiPoto’s early moves. Hopefully the days of drafting middle infielders and trying to turn them into OFers before they are 25 are over.

I never actually stated my opinion of the moves he’s made so far. Karns was a fair deal. M’s won that one. But I was talking long term when it came to Andyman’s initial opinion of Dipoto. He’s good with building young starting pitching depth. But when it comes to offense, he’s so into OBP that he’ll acquire players that hit .240, strike out a lot, don’t bunt, don’t steal, all because they have a .350 career OBP. He’ll sacrifice defense for that OBP. He never seemed to understand how valuable a good bullpen is in August until 2014. Bullpen was the one thing the Angels needed to get back to the playoffs for about 4-5 years, and it took Dipoto 2 1/2 seasons to figure that out. I was basically trying to tell Andyman that unless Dipoto has learned enough from his glaring mistakes with the Angels, this what Mariners fans should expect out of Jerry Dipoto. If he does in fact sign Chris Iannetta, there’s a red flag.

Everything is relative. In Seattle, we thought Zduriencik would bring a balance of scouting and statistical savvy to the M’s front office. He turned out to be a fraud who didn’t understand anything about analysis (not a very good comment on the intelligence of the guys he snowed to get the job). He ruined a number of talented young players by rushing them up to try and improve the underachieving team. He was constantly moving young players out of position before they even had their feet under them. Only Kyle Seager survived this spastic strategy. When all else failed, he just tried to sign bashers on the free agent market, which isn’t a very sustainable offensive strategy for a rebuilding team.

So from our perspective, Dipoto makes a lot of sense. OBP is the main thing that our team lacks, and it is the number one team stat that correlates with winning, and has for over 100 years. I’m willing to give him a shot.